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My Dad died on this day 7 years ago. I just learned that today is also National Hot Pastrami Day.
My father was a Sid Caesar man. Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour trumped Benny, Berle, and Gleason.
So when My Favorite Year came out, Dad was eager to take his children to see it. I was eleven years old and we went one Saturday afternoon to the Paramount. I always loved that theater because it was underground. Dad fell asleep during the movie but my brother, sister and I enjoyed ourselves. It didn't matter that Dad passed out (he was still boozin' then). The subject meant something to him. The movie was funny and sentimental. And O'Toole was nominated for an Oscar.
And Dad woke up for the finale:
[Photo Via: Cinema Treasures]
Head on over to SB Nation and check out a memoir story I wrote about my father and the two Rogers–Angell and Kahn. Leave a comment over there if you dig it.
My Dad's family wrote letters, lots of them. And saved them, too. My father taught my sister, brother, and me how to write letters and to value them, not just as a way of saying "thank you" for a gift but as a way of communicating. I think he preferred writing letters to talking–and he loved to talk–because in a letter he could be more exact and clear than he could in person or over the phone. He often was so infatuated with his words that his style, the way he phrased things, became more important than what he said. And he typed his letters always.
I'll never forget the delicate "Par Avion" envelopes that came from my mom's family in Belgium, either. They were handwritten and in French but still, they were small treasures, slightly mysterious, always full of promise. Getting a letter made me feel special. After all, someone had taken the time to sit down, write out their thoughts, put the paper in an envelope, place a stamp on it, then drop it in a mailbox.
I write letters occasionally now, a few people I know don't use e-mail and that's the best way to get them. Some e-mails I write as letters, and it's only recently that I've broken the habit of starting each e-mail, "Dear so-and-so." I was told that wasn't appropriate for business e-mails, go figure.
I got to thinking about letters the other day after reading this Talk of the Town piece by Roger Angell in The New Yorker:
Letters aren't exactly going away. Condolence letters can't be sent out from our laptops, and maybe not love letters, either, because e-mail is so leaky. Secrets—an expected baby, a lowdown joke, a killer piece of gossip—require a stamp and a sealed flap, and perhaps apologies do as well ("I don't know what came over me"). Not much else. E-mail is cheap, and the message is done and delivered almost as quickly as the thought of it. The sense that something's been lost can produce the glimmering notion that overnight mail itself must have been a sign of thrilling modernity once. The penny post (with its stamps and its uniform rates) arrived in the United Kingdom in 1840, and in the decade that followed Anthony Trollope, a postal inspector, was travelling all over Ireland on the swift new express trains and persistent locals, to make sure that every letter, wherever bound, was actually being delivered the next day. On those same trains, he sat and wrote novels, and in the novels dukes and barristers and young M.P.s and wary heiresses and country doctors were writing letters that moved the plot along or reversed it or tilted it in some way. The restless energy of Victorian times, there and here at home, demanded fresh news and lots of it. I myself can recall the four-o'clock-in-the-afternoon arrival of the second mail of the day at our house when I was a boy, and the resultant changes of evening plans.
If we stop writing letters, who will keep our history or dare venture upon a biography? George Washington, Oscar Wilde, T. E. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vera Nabokov, J. P. Morgan—if any of these vivid predecessors still belong to us in some fragmented private way, it's because of their letters or diaries (which are letters to ourselves) or thanks to some strong biography built on a ledge of letters. Twenty years ago, many of us got a whole new sense of the Civil War while watching and listening to Ken Burns's nine-part television documentary, which took its poignant tone from the recital of Union and Confederate soldiers' letters home. G.I.s in the Second World War wrote home on fold-over V-Mail sheets. Troops in Afghanistan and, until lately, Iraq keep up by Skype and Facebook, and in some sense are not away at all.
[Photo Credits: The Terrier and Lobster]
It's hard to figure that it's almost been five years since my Dad passed away. I got to thinking about him on the subway this morning when a man came on the train with a bible in his left hand and started talking about Jesus. The man through the packed car slowly and was ignored by the passengers. I smiled as I remembered something Dad once said to a subway preacher. Dad looked up from his book when the preacher got close, looked up at him and in a loud, clear voice said, "Sir, your arrogance is breathtaking."
Ah, the old man was a good one.
In the fall of 1984, my brother, sister and I met Mike Fox, one of my dad's old friends. My sister and I were thirteen. A few months later, Mike and I started a correspondence that continues to this day. Here's his first letter to me.
There is a moving Father's Day piece by Charles M. Blow over at the New York Times that is worth your time:
It was the late-1970s. My parents were separated. My mother was now raising a gaggle of boys on her own. She was a newly minted schoolteacher. He was a juke-joint musician-turned-construction worker.
He spouted off about what he planned to do for us, buy for us. But the slightest thing we did or said drew the response, "you jus' blew it." In fact, he had no intention of doing anything. The one man who was supposed to be genetically programmed to love us, in fact, lacked the understanding of what it truly meant to love a child — or to hurt one.
To him, this was a harmless game that kept us excited and begging. In fact, it was a cruel, corrosive deception that subtly and unfairly shifted the onus of his lack of emotional and financial investment from him to us.
I lost faith in his words and in him. I stopped believing. Stopped begging. Stopped expecting. I wanted to stop caring, but I couldn't.
Meanwhile, over at Grantland, Jane Leavy has a piece on her old man:
When my father realized he was going blind he took up golf.
Empirical evidence of his loss of vision was plentiful — the run-in with a pickup truck that nearly decapitated my dozing mother in the passenger seat of the car; the Patrick O'Brian novels he could no longer read; the eye drops that never did any good; the dreaded ophthalmological pyramid of letters projected in a dark room in a dark world growing more occluded every day.
But, he did not accept the brutal, unwavering diagnosis — Macular Degeneration — until the guys in his regular tennis game, the guys he'd been playing with every Sunday for 30 years, told him not to show up again. The realpolitik of sport, every sport, at every level of competition, is cruel and uncompromising. Even he could read the writing on that wall.
[Photo Credit: L.A. Times]
My father was an incorrigible name dropper. He called famous actors and directors by their first names, suggesting an intimacy that didn't always exist. He had met a lot of celebrities when he worked as a unit production manager on The Tonight Show. One chance encounter with Richard Pryor and he was "Richie" forever. Dad reached the heights of chutzpah when he went to the theater with a friend one night and spotted the actress Gwen Verdon. He walked down to her, introduced himself, and kissed her on the cheek as if they'd known each other for years. Ms. Verdon was delighted. Dad's friend was amazed.
I remember watching "12 Angry Men" with the old man when I was a kid. "It's almost as good as the original," he said, referring to the TV production. "You see how exciting a movie can be even if it takes place in one room?"
I was captivated and by the end, I felt intelligent, finally on the right side of the line that separates boys and men. It was directed by "Sidney," Sidney Lumet. They had crossed paths once; Dad had wanted to turn "Fail Safe" into a movie, a project that Lumet eventually directed. The old man admired Lumet not just because he was a fellow New Yorker but also because they shared a similar aesthetic, a love of the theater and actors. Dad was an avid theatergoer starting in his early teens through his mid thirties when he became an independent documentary producer. He revered Lumet's quick and efficient approach to shooting a movie.
"Sidney always comes in under budget and has it in his contract that he keeps the difference," he told me, raising his eyebrows. "Now, that is a smart man."
Not long after my mother kicked him out, Dad saw "The Verdict" and raved about the performance Lumet got out of Paul Newman as a lawyer who became an alcoholic when he got screwed over, then sobered up when the chance for redemption arose. His clients got justice, he got back his self-respect, and I got squat because I was 11 and Dad said that was too young to watch the movie. The closest I got was the commercials on TV. Everything looked dark brown, courtrooms and bars alike, and Newman seemed so frail I didn't even notice his famous blue eyes.
Dad holed up on his own in Weehawken, across the Hudson, after his next girlfriend gave him the boot as well. There were two things that he liked about New Jersey: the view of New York City from his bedroom window, and that the liquor store down the block opened before noon on Sundays.
I remember visiting him without my brother or sister one time in January 1983, shortly after "The Verdict" came out. It was a late Saturday afternoon, almost dark, and the sun reflected off the tall buildings overlooking 12th Avenue. The old man was lying on his bed in his underwear and t-shirt smoking a Pall Mall. The heating pipes clanged. The windows were sealed shut around the edges by duct tape but still rattled when it got windy. A glass of vodka sat next to the ashtray on his night table. I used to fantasize about emptying his Smirnoff bottle in the kitchen sink and filling it back up with water. But I never had the nerve.
Most of the time he'd make me entertain myself on the other side of the apartment, in the room without a view of the city. He didn't want me reading comic books but I did anyway. Or I'd trace the movie ads from the Sunday paper. "The Verdict" was nominated for five Oscars including best actor and best picture. The movie ad showed Newman in a rumpled white shirt, tie loosened, his eyes half closed looking down. The light from a window washed over his face. He looked defeated. The text above read: "Frank Galvin Has One Last Chance at a Big Case." I traced the movie poster and then drew it freehand. I felt the seriousness of the title "The Verdict." I didn't know what that term meant and didn't ask.
Now I was content to sit next to Dad on his bed and look out the window at the orange light bouncing off the New York skyline. The view reminded us of how far we were from where we wanted to be.
There was a small black-and-white TV on the chest at the foot of the bed. An episode of M*A*S*H, the old man's favorite show, ended. The familiar and mournful theme song, "Suicide is Painless" filled the room. Dad was talking about his girlfriend. He didn't seem too bothered by their breakup. Leaving Manhattan was the bigger issue. With Mom, he was devastated. He still believed she was foolish to divorce him and was convinced that one day she'd come to her senses and have him back
Soon enough Dad returned to the subject of Sidney because Lumet directed the Saturday Afternoon Movie. "He always comes in under budget, do you know why? Because Sidney is not stupid, that's why."
"Dog Day Afternoon" was on TV: an Al Pacino movie for grown-ups, but Dad let me watch it with him anyway. Maybe the vodka he was drinking softened his resolve. I knew enough not to question why. Pacino—Dad called him "Al"—played Sonny, a little guy who robbed a bank in Brooklyn. The movie was about what happened in the inside of the bank with Sonny and the hostages. It was tense but parts were funny and I laughed when Dad laughed.
During a commercial break, I saw that his eyes were closed. I studied him. His stomach inflated and deflated in short, hard spurts. Dad was forty-five, almost six years removed from a heart attack, and his deep, uneven breathing worried me. He flexed his right foot and his big toe cracked so I knew he wasn't asleep. Maybe he was meditating. He opened his eyes and smiled at me, put his hand over mine and looked back at the TV. When he took it away, it was to reach for another cigarette. I stared at the movie until I heard him start to snore. So I slipped out of bed, moving like a cat on the branch of a tree, and butted out his cigarette in the ashtray sitting on a table covered with burn marks. Then I climbed back into bed, careful not to rouse him. I wasn't sure what was going to happen to the old man. He didn't have a job and wasn't in show business anymore. If only he would quit drinking.
I checked to see the progress of the light on the skyscrapers during the commercials. The orange glow began to fade as the sun set, turning softer, then pink as the sky darkened to a purplish blue. I thought of what Dad said when Channel Five ran the same public service announcement every night: "It's 10:00 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" He'd say, "No, I don't know where they are. I know they are not with me and that makes me very sad." He told me so himself.
In "Dog Day Afternoon," things were only getting worse for Al. It was nighttime in Brooklyn in the middle of summer and the air conditioning in the bank was turned off. The cops brought his boyfriend, Leon, to speak with him on the phone. Al was robbing the bank so he could afford a sex-change operation for the guy. That made sense to me. It was the right thing to do.
At last, the cops agreed to give him an airplane to escape. I imagined what the inside of the plane looked like and where they were going to go. But when they got to the airport, the FBI nailed him, the hostages were freed, and the movie was over.
I put my hands behind my head, lay back and looked at a water stain on the ceiling. I thought about Al, pushed onto the hood of the car at the airport, the loud sounds of planes taking off and landing in the background. His eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head and he was on his way to jail which didn't seem fair even though he was a criminal. Then I imagined Paul Newman. I was happy the old man had let me be a grown-up with him for a little while.
The white lights of Manhattan were twinkling on the other side of the Hudson when he woke up and refreshed his drink. I didn't want to say anything stupid so I kept my mouth shut. Another cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. He picked up the New York Times crossword puzzle and said, "Good old Sidney. He never left New York."
My father was a schvitzer. Schvitz is a Yiddish word for sweat. His mother was a schvitzer too (but only on one side of her face, it was the strangest thing). I remember calling the old man during the summer months. "How you doin', Pop?"
"Wet," he' say, or "Damp," or "Moist." Sometimes he'd just say, in his best Zero Mostel: "HOT."
I thought of the great family schvitzer last night watching Alfredo Aceves on TV. I have never seen a baseball player sweat like that. The bill of his cap was water-logged after a few batters, thick drops of perspiration falling in his face. Aceves was in trouble in the sixth inning, but then Brett Gardner froze at third on a passed ball, Derek Jeter to hit into a double play. Aceves didn't stop sweating but he saved the rest of the bullpen and finished the game.
Hey Aceves, this schvitz's for you.
[Photo Credit: Weegee]
I love to talk but when it comes to writing I have learned that you can talk too much. You can talk a story out before you've finished–or started–writing. Some talking is good because it helps formulate your thinking but I've discovered that it can go too far.
Talking comes naturally. When I was younger I talked because I was anxious, talked because silence was terrifying. But talking also runs in the family. My twin sister loves to talk. My old man was a champion talker. He loved the sound of his own voice. He talked instead of working. (Maybe that is why I am attracted to but mostly repulsed by Fran Lebovitz.) On the other hand, my mother walked the walk; she was pragmatic, a worker, not a dreamer.
I got to thinking about talking when I read this piece on James Agee by John Updike, a review of "Letters of James Agee to Father Flye":
Alcohol—which appears in the first Harvard letters ("On the whole, an occasional alcoholic bender satisfies me fairly well") and figures in almost every letter thereafter—was Agee's faithful ally in his "enormously strong drive, on a universally broad front, toward self-destruction." But I think his real vice, as a writer, was talk. "I seem, and regret it and hate myself for it, to be able to say many more things I want to in talking than in writing." He describes his life at Harvard as "an average of 3.5 hours sleep per night; 2 or 3 meals per day. Rest of the time: work, or time spent with friends. About 3 nights a week I've talked all night. . . ." And near the end of his life, in Hollywood: "I've spent probably 30 or 50 evenings talking alone most of the night with Chaplin, and he has talked very openly and intimately." And what are these letters but a flow of talk that nothing but total fatigue could staunch? "The trouble is, of course, that I'd like to write you a pretty indefinitely long letter, and talk about everything under the sun we would talk about, if we could see each other. And we'd probably talk five or six hundred pages…"
He simply preferred conversation to composition. The private game of translating life into language, or fitting words to things, did not sufficiently fascinate him. His eloquence naturally dispersed itself in spurts of interest and jets of opinion. In these letters, the extended, "serious" projects he wishes he could get to—narrative poems in an "amphibious style," "impressionistic" histories of the United States, an intricately parodic life of Jesus, a symphony of interchangeable slang, a novel on the atom bomb—have about them the grandiose, gassy quality of talk. They are the kind of books, rife with Great Ideas, that a Time reviewer would judge "important." The poignant fact about Agee is that he was not badly suited to working for Henry Luce.
When I first saw Eric Puchner's GQ story, "Schemes of My Father" last week, I ignored it. Too close to home, I figured. From the sounds of the title it could have been my old man he was writing about. So I stayed away, but eventually, I went back, read the lead and was hooked. Turns out Puchner's father wasn't much like mine at all–a schemer of a different color–but I'll tell you this: I aspire to write as well as Puchner. Here is is describing his father's pretensions, having moved his family from Baltimore to California:
Growing up, I'd more or less sub scribed to his Gatsbyesque invention of himself as an aristocrat. There were the ascots, of course, usually paired with tweed. He liked to go bird hunting on the weekends, despite being a terrible shot. For a brief period he insisted we dress up for dinner every night, which for my brother and me meant coats and ties. He boarded horses in the country and prodded my oldest sister to take up polo. He refused to let us wear baseball caps indoors and liked to keep a Manwich-thick wad of cash in his billfold, flaunting it in front of cashiers. Even before the ascots and the polo, he'd saddled his children with increasingly absurd names meant to conjure riding breeches and hunt clubs: Alexander, Laurel, Pendleton, and his pièce de résistance, my own: Roderic. I didn't know that my dad had been one of the poorest kids at his wealthy private school in Milwaukee, and so I'd always accepted these affectations as part of my father's identity, as essential to who he was as his love of bratwurst.
Now, though, his blue-blooded habits began to seem absurd. For the first time I saw them in the same light as my own desperate attempts to fit in, which had begun to seem absurd to me as well. Despite an aggressive marketing campaign, I'd failed to become Californian in a way that would convince anyone but the drunkest tourist. I wore jungle-print Vans and shirts with wooden buttons and Wayfarers that were also made, inexplicably, of wood. I had a white Op poncho that I liked to wear with nothing underneath, thinking I looked like Jim Morrison on the cover of Morrison Hotel. My moment of reckoning came when I was at the mall with my best friend, Will, another East Coast transplant, and some surfers called me a "dingleberry." I had to ask Will what a dingleberry was, and his graphic description made such an impression on me that I went home and took off all my clothes and hid my jungle-print Vans at the back of the closet.
Soon after that, I bought my first punk record—Los Angeles, by X—and began to discover another California, one far removed from the beach bunnies and slack-eyed surfers who'd seemed to me like the epitome of West Coast cool. Minutemen, Black Flag, the Dream Syndicate: The songs coming out of my turntable were about as unsunny as could be, noisy and weird and full of anger at the well-tanned rich. And the singers, Californians themselves, weren't afraid to be smart. I started dressing like my old self again, slipping off to Hollywood clubs whenever I could, amazed at all the pale, black-booted kids pogoing in flannel. It was a culture as distant from my dad's beach-club ambitions as you can possibly imagine.
* * * *
It's this real California—and not the one my father invented for us—that I still call home, one that's closer to my heart than any place on earth. There's something about my father's love for the state, no matter how misdirected it was, that seems to have seeped into my blood. Or perhaps it's the love itself that I love. Which is to say: Even if the dream isn't real, the dreamers are. There's something about the struggling actors and screenwriters and immigrants who live here, the pioneer spirit that despite everything still brings people to the edge of America in search of success, that makes me feel at home.
"Schemes of My Father" is one of the most absorbing and well-crafted stories I have read in a long time. I feel richer for having read it.
For more on Puchner, who is a novelist and short story writer, check out his website.
My old man used to drink at The Ginger Man, a restaurant near Lincoln Center. The place was named after the play based on J.P. Donleavy's novel. Patrick O'Neal, one of the owners, had stared in the short-lived play. The novel, was reissued not long ago, and over at The Daily Beast, Allen Barra calls it "the funniest novel in the English language since Evelyn Waugh."
Okay, so this one's from Katz's Deli downtown not the Carnegie. They make a better pastrami anyhow, still one of the very few places that slices the pastrami by hand which allows for all the fatty goodness.
Speaking of which, my brother used to go to the 2nd Avenue Deli with my old man all the time. One time, they sat down and dad started in on the complimentary cole slaw. He was a fast talker and a fast eater. He started to choke on the salad just as the waiter arrived. My brother ordered two pastrami sandwiches while the Old Man, eyes wet, face red, downed a glass of water. Before he finished drinking he held up his hand to the waiter. Put the glass down, out-of-breath, and said, "Fatty."
[Photo Credit: Rachelleb.com]
Roger Angell was the first baseball writer I can remember. Actually, it was the two Rogers–Angell and Kahn–whose books were in my father's collection, and sometimes–I'm sure I'm not alone here–I confused them. But when it came time to actually reading them and not just noticing the jacket cover of their books, Angell was my guy. Years later, when I started this blog, Angell served as a role model. Not because I wanted to copy his style or his sensibility, but because he was an example of fan who wrote well and loved the game.
So long as I was authentic and wrote with dedication and sincerity, I knew I'd be okay. Angell came to mind recently when I read a blog post by the veteran sports writer, David Kindred:
Bill Simmons is America's hottest sportswriter. Fortunately, at the same time I came up with an explanation that enabled me to continue calling myself a sportswriter. Bill Simmons has succeeded because he is not, has never been, and will never be a sportswriter. He's a fan.
Lord knows, there's nothing wrong with being a fan. I love sports fans. Without the painted-face people, I'd be writing ad copy for weedeaters. But I have I ever been a sports fan. A fan of reporting, yes. Of journalism. Of newspapers. A fan of reading and writing, you bet. I am a fan of sports, which is different from being a sports fan of the Simmons stripe.
The art and craft of competition fascinates me. Sports gives us, on a daily basis, ordinary people doing extraordinary things and extraordinary people doing unimagined things. I love it.But I have never cared who wins. I am a disciple of the Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Dave Anderson, whose gospel is: "I root for the column." We don't care what happens as long as there's a story.
My readings of Simmons now suggest he is past caring only about the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and Patriots winning (though if they all won championships in the same year, the book would be an Everest of Will Durant proportions). He now engages, however timidly, in actual reporting of actual events; he even has allowed that interviewing people might give him insights otherwise unavailable on his flat-screen TV. Clearly, though, he is most comfortable in his persona as just a guy talking sports with other guys between commercials – which is fine if, unlike me, you go for that guys-being-guys/beer-and-wings nonsense and have infinite patience for The Sports Guy's bloviation, blather, and balderdash.
Even though Bill James has written almost exclusively about baseball, for traditional newspaper and magazine guys, I doubt that he'd qualify as a sports writer. Not without reporting, or going into the locker rooms. Then where does that leave guys like Joe Sheehan, Tim Marchman, Jonah Keri and Rob Neyer (to name, just a few)? They aren't fans like Simmons, but they write soley about sports.
The definition of what it is to be a sports writer is changing.
I have done some freelance writing for SI.com, gone into the locker rooms and filed stories. I've also worked on longer bonus pieces too. I enjoyed both experiences because it gave me an appreciation for the rigors of journalism. I also came to realize that being a beat writer, for instance, is not a job for me–I'm too old and I don't have that kind of hustle and I don't care enough about where being a good beat writer would take me.
Nobody grows up dreaming of beinga columnist anymore do they? I suspect they dream of growing up and writing, or blogging, so that they can be on TV.
Here at the Banter, I'm more like Simmons or Angell. I'm not a reporter or a columnist or an analyst, and I'm certainly no expert (I'm lucky to have a sharp mind like Cliff writing analytical pieces in this space). I think of myself as an observer. More than a strict seamhead, I write about what it is like to live in New York City and root for the Yankees. Often, I'm just as interested in writing about my subway ride home or the latest Jeff Bridges movie as I am about who the Yankees left fielder will be next year. Which makes the Banter more of a lifestyle blog than just a Yankee site, for better or worse.
So I'm no sports writer and that's cool but I'm not sure what a sports writer is anymore.
…Oh, and along with Kindred, the inimitable Charlie Pierce has started a blog at Boston.com. Pierce is a welcome addition to the landscape. Be sure to check him out.
When I was a kid, I looked through my dad's extensive library of books and through his record collection. Most of the books didn't appeal to me because they didn't have pictures. There was a history of burlesque that was titillating, a book about the history of the Academy Awards, and two of the Illustrated Beatles books; otherwise, his books didn't interest me until much later. The record collection was mostly made-up of Original Cast Recordings from Broadway shows, and folk music joints, from Burl Ives to the Weavers. My mom had some Simon and Garfunkel and Judy Collins lps in the mix, and there was a copy of A Hard Day's Night, but that was as rockin' as it got.
What was left? A handful of comedy records–Why Is There Air? and I Started Out as a Child by Bill Cosby, Vaughn Meader's First Family record, the 2000 Year Old Man, and the 2013 Year Old Man, by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. My twin sister, Sam, younger brother, Ben, and I listened to the Cosby and Brooks-Reiner records until they were practically worn-out. We can quote them without thinking. Every time I get off the phone with my sister we say, "Goodbye…I hope I'm an actor," a throw-away line from Brooks in the Coffee House sketch on the first 2000 Year Old Man album.
Sometimes, before my parents got divorced, the old man would listen with us and we would wait with bated breath for the parts that made him laugh. I practically memorized what jokes got him going. He had a big, almost violent laugh that shook the room. It was exciting and scary but a relief: the old man was happy, and that was enough for us.
It's hard for me not to think of my dad and Mel Brooks together–it is as if Mel is part of the family, just like George Carlin was. Although the old man wasn't a great fan of Mel's movies, he never tired of the 2000 year old man routine. Brooks has made a couple of memorable movies but his true genius is captured on these recordings, or on some of his talk show appearances. (Have you ever read the 1975 Playboy interview with Brooks? It is nothing short of hysterical.)
So I smiled this morning when I read the following interview with Brooks and Reiner in the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times (they are promoting a new boxed-set of the 2000 recordings):
Q: How did you first come up with "The 2000 Year Old Man"?
MEL BROOKS: At the beginning it was pure made-up craziness and joy, and there was no thought of anybody else hearing it except maybe a couple of dear friends at a party.
CARL REINER: It was to pep up a room. We started on "Your Show of Shows," and sometimes there would be a lull [in the writers' room]. I always knew if I threw a question to Mel he could come up with something.
BROOKS: We had fun.
REINER: I remember the first question I asked him. It was because I had seen a program called "We the People Speak," early television. [He puts on an announcer voice] " 'We the People Speak.' Here's a man who was in Stalin's toilet, heard Stalin say, 'I'm going to blow up the world.' " I came in, I said this is good for a sketch. No one else thought so, but I turned to Mel and I said, "Here's a man who was actually seen at the crucifixion 2,000 years ago," and his first words were "Oh, boy." [He sighs.] We all fell over laughing. I said, "You knew Jesus?" "Yeah," he said "Thin lad, wore sandals, long hair, walked around with 11 other guys. Always came into the store, never bought anything. Always asked for water." Those were the first words, and then for the next hour or two I kept asking him questions, and he never stopped killing us.
BROOKS: It was all ad-libbed, and nothing was ever talked about before we did it. We didn't write anything, we didn't think about anything. Whatever was kinetic, whatever was chemical, we did it.
Here goes a sample…
From the first record:
For most of us, death will not announce itself with a blare of trumpets or a roar of cannons. It will come silently, on the soft paws of a cat. It will insinuate itself, rubbing against our ankle in the midst of an ordinary moment. An uneventful dinner. A drive home from work. A sofa pushed across a floor. A slight bend to retrieve a morning newspaper tossed into a bush. And then, a faint cry, an exhale of breath, a muffled slump.
My father died on this day two years ago. He was at home with his wife. They were getting ready to watch their favorite TV show. He had just eaten his favorite pasta dish. He slumped over in his chair and that was it. He officially lasted until the next day but really that was when he left us.
I always imagined that he would have a dramatic death. He was a big-hearted and volatile man. He was unafraid to get into it with, well, virtually anyone. I saw him kick the hub cap off a moving vehicle that had cut us off on West End Avenue and 79ths street, and was with him when he pulled a vandal out of a parked car. I thought he'd die in a pool of blood. I worried about it constantly. But he left quietly.
I think about him less now. Of course, I still think about him but I am not consumed with it as I was for the first year after he died, when his absence was acute. Almost every block in the city, certainly on the Upper West Side where he lived, holds a memory, some happy, others not so much, of the old man. I miss his stories, I miss asking him questions about the theater and the Dodgers and Damon Runyon.
But I don't miss how tough he was on me, or the fact that even as an adult, I felt anxious around him. I don't miss how competitive he was with me, and I don't miss worrying about his financial state. When he was alive, I don't think there was a time when I wasn't afraid of him, even if it was on a subtle or subconscious level.
I feel relief now that he's not around. I loved him very much and the feeling was mutual. He was proud of me, he was proud all of his kids, as well as his neices and nephews. He and I buried the hachet long before he died and I tried my best to accept and love him for who he was not what I wanted or needed him to be when I was a kid. Like most parents, he did the best that he could.
But I don't compare myself to him these days. I am my own man. I remember his warmth and compassion, his laugh and his righteous indignation, and that for all his flaws he was a good man. I'm proud to be his son.
For most of us, death will not announce itself with a blare of trumpets or a roar of cannons. It will come silently, on the soft paws of a cat. It will insinuate itself, rubbing against our ankle in the midst of an ordinary moment. An uneventful dinner. A drive hom from work. A sofa pushed across a floor. A slight bend to retrieve a morning newspaper tossed into a bush. And then, a faint cry, an exhale of breath, a muffled slump." *
A Ridiculous Will —Pat Jordan
The summer is almost over: The last days of Yankee Stadium are upon us. Over the weekend, my neighborhood was crowded with kids returning to Manhattan College. A few days ago I went to Brooklyn to get my haircut. I hadn't been in a few months and was starting to look downright shaggy. When I walked into the shop, early in the morning, the owner Ray was sitting in his chair. I noticed the place looked bigger and asked where my barber, Efrain was.
"He's gone," said Ray.
As in retired, not dead. Up and left three weeks ago. Moved to Florida with his wife. Didn't tell any of his few remaining clients. He only gave Ray a few days notice.
"His legs have been hurting him," said Ray.
I felt stunned although not surprised. I had been waiting for the day that I walked into the shop to discover that Efrain was gone–retired or dead–for some time now. I sat in Ray's chair and listened to him as he cut my hair. But I didn't really hear him. I could only think back on Efrain.
During and immediately after the War there was precious little work to be found in Belgium, so my mother's father, a man's man in the Ted Williams mold (although far more reserved), who had a considerable amount of wanderlust, moved his young family to the Congo, where my ma lived from the time she was three (1947) until she was a teenager. I learned about my father's family, from Russia and Poland respectively, mostly through the oral tradition, endless stories, and even some writings. But I learned about my mother's family chiefly through photographs and 8 mm home movies, a) because of the language barrier (they speak broken English, I speak broken French), and b) because they took an extraordinary amount of pictures. You can imagine how exotic it was to me as a kid to see photographs of my mom in Africa. "You grew up there and you wound up in the suburbs?" I used to kid her when I was a wise-ass teenager.
As it turns out, my mom and dad met in Addis Ababa, of all places. 1966. My father was there working as a production manager on a National Geographic Special on Africa. My mother was there with a group of friends, making a short documentary for graduate school about their trip from Northern Africa down to Ethipia.
Dig this. Which one you think is Ma Dooke?
And here's the old man, in full Elliott Gould mode:
So, where did your folks meet?
In his first installment of our series about the box set of the 1977 World Series, Jay Jaffe mentioned how much his father admired Reggie Jackson:
Reggie made a big impression on my father, himself a second-generation Dodger fan who had no truck with the pinstripes. Via him, Reggie gained larger-than-life status in my eyes. When we played catch, occasionally Dad would toss me one that would sting my hand or glance off my glove. If I complained, he'd shout, "Don't hit 'em so hard, Reggie!" In other words, don't bellyache, and don't expect your opponent to cut you any slack.
Longtime readers of Bronx Banter know that not only was Reggie my favorite player as a kid but he was one of the few Yankees my Dad also enjoyed too. Shortly before my father died earlier this year, I wrote a memoir piece about him and Reggie Jackson. I was thinking a lot about the old man two days ago on Father's Day, and thought now would be a good time to share this story with you.
"Dad, Reggie, and Me" was originally published in Bombers Broadside 2007: An Annual Guide to New York Yankees Baseball (March, Maple Street Press). (c) 2007 Maple Street Press LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Dad, Reggie and Me
There is nothing like the first time. Nothing is as intense, as memorable as your first love, your first break-up or, in this case, your first hero. Mine was Reggie Jackson, who signed as a free agent with the Yankees 30 years ago. I was six years old during Jackson's first year in pinstripes, a time when I was as interested in action heroes and comic books as I was in baseball. Reggie was more a superhero—a "superduperstar" as Time magazine once dubbed him—than a ball player. Bruce Jenner may have been on a box of Wheaties but Reggie had his own candy bar. (Catfish Hunter once said "I unwrapped it and it told me how good it was.") Reggie arrived in New York at a time when I desperately needed a fantasy hero; his five volatile years in pinstripes coincided with the disintegration of my parents' marriage.
The truth is the Yankees never wanted Jackson in the first place. In 1976, they won the pennant with an effective left-handed DH in Oscar Gamble. But after they were swept in the World Series by the Reds, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was bent on adding a big name. The first free agent re-entry draft was held that fall and the Yankees drafted the negotiating rights for nine players. Reggie was their sixth choice. Steinbrenner and his general manager, Gabe Paul, coveted second baseman Bobby Grich; manager Billy Martin pined for outfielder Joe Rudi. Then, over the course of a few days in mid-November, seven of the nine players the Yankees were interested in signed elsewhere, and suddenly Steinbrenner had no choice but to court Reggie. Paul was against it, but Steinbrenner courted Reggie anyway, wining and dining the superstar around New York. In the end, Jackson couldn't resist the Yankees anymore than Steinbrenner could keep himself from wooing the slugger. He turned down bigger offers from the Expos and the Padres and signed. "I didn't come to New York to be a star," he said. "I brought my star with me."
I remember my father in those years sitting in his leather-bound chair, reading The New York Times, a glass of vodka constantly by his side. In 1976, we moved from Manhattan to Westchester and my father had a heart attack at the age of 39. He was unemployed for a year, horribly depressed. My mother got a job and chopped wood to keep our gratuitously spacious house warm. We moved to a nearby town, Yorktown Heights, in 1977 before my father began to work again.
As you can well imagine, yesterday was tough, and today feels even tougher. It feels so strange saying, "I watched my father die two days ago." Here is the Death Notice from today's Times:
Don Zvi Belth, 69, of the Upper West Side in Manhattan, died unexpectedly on Monday, January 15. Son of Helen and Nathan Caro Belth, loving husband of Kathy Neily, father of Alex, Samantha and Ben, father in law of Erin and Emily, grandfather of Lucas, brother of Bernice Belth, brother-in-law of Fred Garbers, nephew of Anita Fried, cousin of Don Fried, Paula Luzzi, Deborah and Mary Wallach, Rosanne Stein, and Stephen and Andrew Belth, uncle of Gordon Gray, Alexandra Pruner and Samantha Garbers. He will be remembered for his encompassing warmth, his humor, his intense loyalty and the vigor of his opinions. For the past 23 years Don has been an active and vital member of the Upper West Side recovery community. His passion for his beliefs and the way in which he shared them has been an ongoing gift to countless people and that voice is his legacy. His signature greeting, "Hello anyone," is sadly now "Good-bye anyone." The family will be receiving visitors at the home of Bernice Belth, 875 West End Avenue, on Wednesday and Thursday evening, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. A memorial service will be held at a later date. Donations can be made in his name to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Pop wasn't much of a sports fan as an adult, though he did admire the isolated great play if he happened to catch it on TV. He liked baseball best, and followed it casually in the Times. But growing up he was a passionate fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers–even though he was raised in Washington Heights, which was Giants or Yankee country. Dad liked to say that he was "second-to-none" as a fan of Jackie Robinson. He actually got Robinson to sign a copy of an early Jackie autobiography for him when he was a kid (Pop was ten-years old when Robinson broke the color barrier). Dad gave me the book when I was a teenager.
One thing was clear, though: Pop was a classic Yankee-hater. He hated them because the Bombers beat the Dodgers every year. Dad was 18 in '55 when the Brooklyn finally defeated the Yanks in the Serious. That was a highlight for him for sure, but he seemed to have remembered the many defeats more than that one highlight. (He was riding in a car down the West Side highway with my grandparents when Bobby Thompson hit "the shot heard 'round the world.") My grandfather was friends with a man who owned a company that printed the Yankees' programs. This guy had box seats at The Stadium, just behind first base, and so my Dad went to see many of those World Series games in 47, 49, 52, 53, and 56.
Pop took me to see a handful of games as a kid–including an extra-inning affair in the early eighties where Bobby Murcer hit a game-winning dinger in extra innings against the Birds–and claimed to have never seen the Yankees lose in person. He stopped going to games, mostly because he wasn't particularly interested in baseball, truth be told, but also because he felt he was a reverse jinx. If he went, the Yankees would win. And while Dad respected and even liked certain Yankees along the years–Reggie Jackson, Joe Torre, and Mariano Rivera come to mind–he absolutely loathed George Steinbrenner as a bully, and interloper.
One of Pop's favorite Yankee moments when I was a kid involved Reggie. We were at a game where Jackson hit a game-winning bomb. I don't have a clear memory of it, but according to Dad, it must have been in '80, or '81, maybe against the White Sox or the Brewers. Dad liked to tell me he called the shot, and I believe that he did. The following day, Pop was at Tiffany's on Fifth avenue with his friend Jim Thurman. They spotted Jackson, wearing a fur coat, across the room looking at some jewelry. He was the toast of the town on that day. Thurman yelled out, "Hey Reg, good game last night. Who won?" Jackson, according to my dad, got a good laugh out of that, and my dad always laughed, deep and hard, whenever he told the story.
The language of baseball, the history and culture of baseball, is something that Dad and I used to communicate with each other, to remain connected. It was a safe topic when others seemed too uncomfortable or strained. It didn't matter that he hated the Yanks. I could ask him about Cookie "Wookie" Lavagetto, and Pete Reiser over and again, as I would tell him about parts of the game I was writing about. He was proud of the book I wrote on Curt Flood, and we agreed that Marvin Miller was, and is, criminally underappreciated these days. It didn't matter that we never shared great catches when I was a kid, baseball helped keep us together when we were adults. And for that, I am eternally grateful.


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It's that time again!
We are looking for some new members to add to our already existing, very talented team of designers. We are excited that some of our DT members will be staying on for another term, but there will be some new openings
If you think you would make a great addition to our team, we want to hear from you! Each of our challenges has shown us that there is a tremendous amount of talent out there. Never been on a design team, no worries. We welcome new faces and new talent. In fact, we encourage it!
DT Member requirements:
- Term commitments from July 1 - October 31.
- Facebook account - this is how we communicate with our DT. It is a private group were all of the challenges will be posted.
- Followers of blog AND Facebook page.
- Keep and active personal blog that is updated frequently. Your blog must be updated with the new challenge on reveal day with a link back to Color Me Scrappy.
- Commit to completing 2 layouts per month.
- Comment on participants entries (THIS IS A MUST!). Any team member not adhering to this rule will be promptly removed from the team so please make sure you can do this before applying.
To apply, send an email to email@example.com with:
- 3 examples of your work.
- A short bio which will be used on our website if you are chosen.
- A list of any online galleries
- A link to your blog
- A list of any past or present DT positions
- Layout using the following color combo...

subset: commoncrawl


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Facts About Meningitis
- Bacterial meningitis is a serious infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain.
- Bacterial meningitis is most commonly caused by one of three types of bacteria: Haemophilus influenzae type b, Neisseria meningitidis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria.
- The bacteria are spread by direct close contact with the discharges from the nose or throat of an infected person.
- Bacterial meningitis can be treated with antibiotics.
- Prevention depends on use of vaccines, rapid diagnosis, and prompt treatment of close personal contacts.
What is bacterial meningitis?
Meningitis is an infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain. Meningitis is usually caused by an infection with a virus or a bacterium. Knowing whether meningitis is caused by a virus or a bacterium is important because of differences in the seriousness of the illness and the treatment needed.
VIRAL MENINGITIS is usually relatively mild. It clears up within a week or two without specific treatment. Viral meningitis is also called aseptic meningitis.
BACTERIAL MENINGITIS is much more serious. It can cause severe disease that can result in brain damage and even death.
What bacteria cause bacterial meningitis?
Bacterial meningitis is most commonly caused by one of three types of bacteria: Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Neisseria meningitidis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Before the 1990s, Hib was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis, but new vaccines being given to children as part of their routine immunizations have reduced the occurrence of serious Hib disease. Today, Neisseria meningitidis and Streptococcus pneumoniae are the leading causes of bacterial meningitis. Meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis is also called MENINGOCOCCAL MENINGITIS. Meningitis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae is called PNEUMOCOCCAL MENINGITIS.
It is important to know which type of bacteria is causing the bacterial meningitis because antibiotics can prevent some types from spreading and infecting other people.
Where is bacterial meningitis found?
Bacterial meningitis is found worldwide. The bacteria often live harmlessly in a person's mouth and throat. In rare instances, however, they can break through the body's immune defenses and travel to the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. There they begin to multiply quickly. Soon, the thin membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord (meninges) becomes swollen and inflamed, leading to the classic symptoms of meningitis.
How do people get bacterial meningitis?
The bacteria are spread by direct close contact with the discharges from the nose or throat of an infected person. Fortunately, none of the bacteria that cause meningitis are very contagious, and they are not spread by casual contact or by simply breathing the air where a person with meningitis has been.
What are the signs and symptoms of bacterial meningitis?
In persons over age 2, common symptoms are high fever, headache, and stiff neck. These symptoms can develop over several hours, or they may take 1 to 2 days. Other symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, confusion, and sleepiness. In advanced disease, bruises develop under the skin and spread quickly.
In newborns and infants, the typical symptoms of fever, headache, and neck stiffness may be hard to detect. Other signs in babies might be inactivity, irritability, vomiting, and poor feeding.
As the disease progresses, patients of any age can have seizures.
Who is at risk for bacterial meningitis?
Anyone can get bacterial meningitis, but it is most common in infants and children. People who have had close or prolonged contact with a patient with meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis or Hib can also be at increased risk. This includes people in the same household or day-care center, or anyone with direct contact with discharges from a meningitis patient's mouth or nose.
How is bacterial meningitis diagnosed?
The diagnosis is usually made by growing bacteria from a sample of spinal fluid. The spinal fluid is obtained by a spinal tap. A doctor inserts a needle into the lower back and removes some fluid from the spinal canal. Identification of the type of bacteria responsible for the meningitis is important for the selection of correct antibiotic treatment.
What complications can result from bacterial meningitis?
Advanced bacterial meningitis can lead to brain damage, coma, and death. Survivors can suffer long-term complications, including hearing loss, mental retardation, paralysis, and seizures.
What is the treatment for bacterial meningitis?
Early diagnosis and treatment are very important. If symptoms occur, the patient should see a doctor right away. Bacterial meningitis can be treated with a number of effective antibiotics. It is important, however, that treatment be started early.
How common is bacterial meningitis?
In the United States, bacterial meningitis is relatively rare and usually occurs in isolated cases. Clusters of more than a few cases are uncommon. However outbreaks occur such as the ones we saw in 2001 in Texas and recently in Oklahoma and Colorado where several deaths and severe debilitation occured in ages 6-30.
In parts of Africa, widespread epidemics of meningococcal meningitis occur regularly. In 1996, the biggest wave of meningococcal meningitis outbreaks ever recorded hit West Africa. An estimated 250,000 cases and 25,000 deaths in Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and other countries paralyzed medical care systems and exhausted vaccine supplies.
Is bacterial meningitis an emerging infectious disease?
With the decline in Hib disease, cases of bacterial meningitis have decreased since 1986. Meningococcal meningitis is a continuing threat in day-care centers and schools. Healthy children and young adults are susceptible, and death can occur within a few hours of onset.
How can bacterial meningitis be prevented?
- Vaccines -- There are vaccines against Hib, some strains of Neisseria meningitidis, and many types of Streptococcus pneumoniae. The vaccines against Hib are very safe and highly effective. By age 6 months of age, every infant should receive at least three doses of an Hib vaccine. A fourth dose (booster) should be given to children between 12 and 18 months of age.
The vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcal vaccine) is not routinely used in civilians in the United States and is relatively ineffective in children under age 2 years. The vaccine is sometimes used to control outbreaks of some types of meningococcal meningitis in the United States. New meningococcal vaccines are under development.
The vaccine against Streptococcal pneumoniae (pneumococcal vaccine) is not effective in persons under age 2 years but is recommended for all persons over age 65 and younger persons with certain medical problems. New pneumococcal vaccines are under development.
- Disease reporting -- Cases of bacterial meningitis should be reported to state or local health authorities so that they can follow and treat close contacts of patients and recognize outbreaks.
- Treatment of close contacts -- People who are identified as close contacts of a person with meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis can be given antibiotics to prevent them from getting the disease. Antibiotics for contacts of a person with Hib disease are no longer recommended if all contacts 4 years of age or younger are fully vaccinated.
- Travel precautions -- Although large epidemics of bacterial meningitis do not occur in the United States, some countries experience large, periodic epidemics of meningococcal disease. Overseas travelers should check to see if meningococcal vaccine is recommended for their destination. Travelers should receive the vaccine at least 1 week before departure, if possible.
Where can I find more information about bacterial meningitis?
This fact sheet is for information only and is not meant to be used for self-diagnosis or as a substitute for consultation with a health-care provider. If you have any questions about the disease described above, consult a health-care provider.
meningitis, bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis, meningococcal meningitis, causes of meningitis, sings of meningitis, pneumococcal meningitis, pertussis, vccines, infants, teen vaccination, national , foundation, america, meningitis, college meningitis,


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By FRC, Special for USDR.
On Tuesday, July 9, 2013, Family Research Council (FRC), a coalition of groups concerned about religious liberty, and Members of Congress, will participate in a Capitol Hill news conference urging support for Rep. John Fleming's (R-LA) military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The amendment protects the right of service members to not only hold religious beliefs but to act on them and speak about them. The House Armed Services Committee adopted the amendment last month to address growing religious hostility within the military. Rep. Fleming's amendment has found bipartisan support in the House, but the Obama administration issued a statement expressing strong opposition to the amendment. A similar amendment by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) passed the Senate Armed Services Committee with broad bipartisan support.
FRC will release a new report at the press conference documenting incidents of hostility toward religious expression in the military.
In April, religious liberty concerns were heightened after anti-Christian activist Mikey Weinstein met with senior Air Force officials at the Pentagon and pressed for the court-martial of Christian service members who share their faith. More than 170,000 Americans signed petitions calling on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to protect the religious liberties of military personnel through policies that guarantee those liberties. Concerns among the American public increased following a Rear Admiral's speech at a National Day of Prayer event in which he recounted a story of his decision to violate military rules preventing him from giving a Bible to a soldier who had attempted suicide.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, executive vice president of FRC, outlined the purpose of the news conference:
"We will stand with servicemembers who wish to exercise their First amendment rights of religious liberty. We will encourage legislation to protect the religious liberty of military members, and we will do all we can to inform the American public about the attacks on religious liberty in the military. We must do all we can to ensure that our servicemembers have the right to practice the very freedoms that they risk their lives to defend."
Tony Perkins, president, Family Research Council
Rep. John Fleming (R-LA)
Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Ron Crews, Ch. (Col.) USAR (Ret.), executive director, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, executive vice president, Family Research Council
WHAT: News Conference on Military Religious Freedom Amendment; release of new report on religious hostility in the military
WHERE: The House Triangle
WHEN: 11:30 a.m. Eastern, Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Coalition members supporting this effort include:
Tim Wildmon, president, American Family Association
Frank Gaffney, president, Center for Security Policy
Tom Fitton, president, Judicial Watch
Mat Staver, founder and chairman, Liberty Counsel
Gary L. Bauer, president, American Values
Tommy Sears, executive director, Center for Military Readiness


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In my experience
- readers on-line prefer summarized news and condensed stories
- a separate audience for traditional books love long stories.
It seems we now reached the point where we write in different methods and styles for these two audiences.
Is this assumption correct?
Should we try to bring the traditional, "lengthy and deep" style to the web, or should we give in and adapt our style to the "short and shallow" web?


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Thursday 16 August 2012
NCR African Curried Coconut Soup
I also added a few leftovers from the fridge and have tried to reflect this in the recipe. What is sometimes harder to reflect in writing the recipe is that I took some of bits and pieces out of the other ingredients to feed Sylvia. I gave her some of the cooked quinoa to try. She wasn't keen. Too strange? I was sneaky. I'd hang my head in shame if it hadn't been such an inspired move. I added some quinoa to some mashed potato and wholemeal flour to make amazing Tattie Scones. We all loved them. Great accompaniment to the soup.
Which brings me to the vexed question of soup. E likes to tease me that a spoon can stand up in my soup. When I first added all the ingredients (see second photo) I thought it was a really soupy soup. I put Sylvia to bed and came back to have my dinner and found that the soup had thickened and the spoon was indeed standing upright. So yes, I love soups that might well be stews in another kitchen.
I am sending this soup to Jacqueline for No Croutons Required. This month the theme is coconuts. And congratulations to Fran and John on the arrival of wee Stella!
Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: Potage St Germain
Two years ago: Florentines, salads and what's in a name
Three years ago: WHB Broccoli – brassica royalty
Four years ago: Lemony Dressing for a Quinoa Salad
Five years ago: Collingwood children's farm – peppercorn trees and...
Hearty African Curried Coconut Soup
Adapted from the Tropical Vegan Kitchen via Eats Well With Others
Serves 4
1/2 cup dried quinoa
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
1 medium red capsicum, diced
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp each curry powder, cumin, mustard powder, chilli paste
2 cups vegetable stock
400g tin of coconut milk
400g chickpeas, rinsed and drained
400g brown lentils, rinsed and drained
2 tomatoes, chopped
(I added a little leftover tomato sauce and roasted pumpkin - optional)
1/2 tsp salt (I forgot this)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
100g black kale, chopped
160g baby spinach
Cook the quinoa by cooking in 1 cup water, bring to the boil and simmer about 20 minutes.
Heat olive oil in a stockpot. (I used a large saucepan which was a wee bit too small.) Fry onion, carrot and capsicum for about 10-15 minutes or until soft. Stir in garlic and spices for about a minute or until fragrant.
Add remaining ingredients except spinach. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Check seasoning and adjust to taste. Add baby spinach and cook another few minutes until spinach is wilted. Serve warm.
On the Stereo:
Bismarck (Original Soundtrack) - Peer Raben
24 comments:
So this looks exactly like the kind of healthful dish I need to be eating instead of candy right now. Oh Utah, you are not a mecca of vegetables.
ReplyDeleteThe flavours in this sound really nice, a lot of the African stew recipes I have seen include peanut butter which I'm not fond of. Sometimes I find that stew recipes are too watery and almost like soup, I much prefer thick hearty versions of both soups and stews. I love your photo of the spoon standing up!
ReplyDelete- Anonymous17 August 2012 at 11:40
this looks just like my cup of tea -- bowl of soup! :) haha I LOVE a thick soup and this looks just perfect!
ReplyDelete I think I definitely have to call this a stew :-) But - whatever the name, it looks wonderful. I think my mum would love it too as she enjoys African flavours. I chuckled at the quinoa in scones too. Inspired indeed!
ReplyDeleteThat pic of the spoon standing up is just hilarious (and the soup sounds brilliant too). I love big, thick, meal-in-a-bowl soups, especially vege-filled ones. But sigh, they are not very child-friendly, are they - or at least not with kids the age of yours and mine. Quinoa scones sound pret rad though, definitely going to check those out!
ReplyDeleteRepliesThanks Lucy - it made me laugh to see the spoon standing up - though once I stirred it, it was more soupy. Unfortunately Sylvia does not appreciate such soups or stews but I hope she will one day (despite knowing a few people who hated soups right into adulthood). The quinoa scones were a great way to make the potato scones healthier - we often have mashed potato over for them but now I want to try with quinoa more
Johanna, that is some sturdy soup! I really like chunky, thick soups so this sounds perfect for my tastes :)
ReplyDeleteThis is my kind of soup. I was going to make a soup but our summer is still more suited to salads right now.
ReplyDeleteI prefer a soup that a spoon will stand up in - I don't like watery soups. This one looks delicious, and the coconut is a fab flavour. Oooh, and the sun has just come out!
ReplyDeleteI'd love a bowl of this! I'm totally with you on the "spoon-should-stand-up-in-it" type of soups. The only thin soup I think I ever eat is miso! Sounds great.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very good! A friend of mine recently brought me a serving of a vegan African peanut and tomato soup she made, and it was very good as well. I'm a fan of stews like that and look forward to autumn which is stewing time. :)
ReplyDeleteThis looks awesome, Johanna. I also gravitate to the stewy soups... Love hearty meal-in-a-bowl dishes. I bookmarked this recipe, too, so I am glad to hear it worked out well. :)
Thanks for dropping by. I love hearing from you. Please share your thoughts and questions. Annoyingly the spammers are bombarding me so I have turned on the pesky captcha code (refresh to find an easy one if you don't like the first one)


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Welcome to The Reel Shelf, a new weekly feature here at Books in the Spotlight where I imagine what's on my favorite TV/Movie character's book shelves. Today I'm highlighting a beloved character that is loved by many: Buffy Summers, the leading heroine in Joss Whedon's phenomenal TV series based off on his original movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BVS). I wasn't a big Buffy fan at first only because I watched an episode here and there, enjoyed it, but I didn't fully understood its brilliance. Last year, I started watching the show on DVD right from the beginning and then it clicked. BVS is funny, light-hearted, but also had its share of darkness and seriousness along with a great characters. The main draw for me, however, was spotlighting a female heroine who is strong in every sense of the word yet vulnerable, approachable and that's why this post is dedicated to the epitome of girl power: Buffy Summers.
Image and Quote from IMDB |
At the young age of 15, Buffy Summers was chosen to hunt vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. After the ordeal at Hemery High, Buffy Summers moves to Sunnydale High in hopes of starting fresh. Along the way she finds finds, love, and a Hellmouth full of evil that never seems to stop. Joined with Willow, Alexander "Xander" Harris, and her watcher/mentor Giles, Buffy fights the challenges of High School and saves the world...a lot.
While watching the show, there were times where I wished I was Buffy. A character who is resilient, physically powerful, a natural born leader, not to mention pretty with a good snarky attitude. It's only when the hard challenges arose, the complete elimination of normalcy, a forced destiny came up did I realize that I could never really be her. I was glad that I didn't have to shoulder the responsibility of the world on my shoulders. The most important thing, however, is that her character showed the world that a woman can be powerful, strong, aggressive (all traits usually assigned to males) while retaining femininity. And for this reason, I will always be grateful of Joss Whedon's creation.
Please note that the following books contain various definitions of "strong" and by no means a complete list of books. This post would be very, very long if I had to include all of them. I'm always on the lookout for strong female heroines. So if you see glaring holes, please feel free to include them in the comments. The usual site that I use to compose this list is currently out of order so I will try my best to list them here.
Kindred by Octavia Butler- Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. After this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to the plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father the daughter who will become Dana's ancestor. Yet each time Dana's sojourns become longer and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not her life will end, long before it has even begun. (Amazon)
Eon has been studying the ancient art of Dragon Magic for four years, hoping he'll be able to apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of good fortune. But he also has a dark secret. He is actually Eona, a sixteen-year-old girl who has been living a dangerous lie for the chance to become a Dragon-eye, the human link to an energy dragon's power. It is forbidden for females to practice the Dragon Magic and, if discovered, Eon faces a terrible death. After a dazzling sword ceremony, Eon's affinity with the twelve dragons catapults him into the treacherous world of the Imperial court, where he makes a powerful enemy, Lord Ido. (Amazon)
Stray by Rachel Vincent- I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds. Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked. I'd been warned about Strays—werecats without a Pride—constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared. This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back…for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I'm no meek kitty. I'll take on whatever—and whoever—I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays—'cause I got claws, and I'm not afraid to use them….(Amazon)
At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe's small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a "thing" for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn't your usual "problem kid" behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…(Amazon)
Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder- I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution. (Amazon)
Bravery, intelligence, the will to fight and fight hard . . . she will need all of these things. Just as she will need the new and mysterious power growing within her. She will also need help. It is Chen Yong who finds her partly submerged and barely breathing at the edge of a deep lake. There is something of unspeakable evil trying to drag her under. On a quest of his own, Chen Yong offers that help . . . and perhaps more. (Amazon)
First Test by Tamora Pierce - In the medieval and fantastic realm of Tortall, Keladry of Mindelan is the first girl to take advantage of the decree that permits females to train for knighthood. (Amazon)
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendra Blake - Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home. But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life. (Amazon)
Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien - In the Enclave, you scars set you apart, and the newly born will change the future. Sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone and her mother faithfully deliver their quota of three infants every month. But when Gaia's mother is brutally taken away by the very people she serves, Gaia must question whether the Enclave deserves such loyalty. (Amazon)


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During the 1960s, teaching architectural history witnessed its greatest calamity when two academic disciplines bifurcated. Schools of Architecture and Departments of Art History decided to part ways, a rather unfortunate divorce for architectural historians who served both communities. In the 1980s, the golden decade of post-structural theory, School of Architecture took a dive into deep theory. The same can be said about art historians dealing with visual texts. But architectural historians that had no relationship to contemporary architectural practices did not. Interestingly enough, both are now in crisis. The high theorists of architecture our spinning their wheels, while the positivists art historians are losing their audience by the minute.
Colin Davies has written the first textbook that has successfully bridged the gap between the anti-historical theorists and the anti-theoretical historians. Thinking about Architecture: An Introduction to Architectural Theory (London, 2011) is a phenomenal accomplishment. In just 150 pages and organized around eight themes, Davies has interjected history with the passion of its internal hermeneutic tradition but has also tamed the seemingly incomprehensible "architecture speak" (or theory light) still dominant in schools of design. Each chapter is divided into coherent sections with obvious primary sources for the student and a very economical number of monuments that most efficient illustrate the point. I have embraced the book for its clarity and sophistication and its classroom-friendliness.
Another new book that I absolutely adore is a little collection of essays on the architecture of the home. Edwin Heathcote is the architecture critic for the Financial Times and his essays originate from those pages. His little book, The Meaning of Home (London, 2012), takes the reader through a philosophical tour of every nook and corner of a home. Each essay is a few pages long but rich with evocations on historical meanings. It makes an ideal textbook for a class on the philosophy of houses if supplemented by an investigation of the textual comparenda that it brings to the reader (literature, philosophy, film, etc.) But it also makes an inspiring read for anyone interested in the cultural power of houses. This book fits well in Christmas stockings (but beware of ugly cover).
I also reviewed Alexandra Lange's, Writing about Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities (New York, 2012). The book is intended as a handbook on writing contemporary criticism. It takes six classic texts of criticism and analyzes them as strategic documents. The texts are Lewis Mufmord's "House of Glass," Herbert Muschamp's "The Miracle of Bilbao," Michael Sorkin's "Save the Whitney," Charles Moore's "You Have to Pay for the Public Life," Frederick Law Olmsted's "Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns," and Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." The collection is a wonderful idea and I can imagine how it could be used for a writing seminar on criticism. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out any other objectives and found it difficult to incorporate it in any classes that I teach. Lange gave a seminar at Queens College this last semester on What to Do with an Art History Degree. I would have loved my students to attend since, outside of New York or Los Angeles, few consider a career in architectural criticism.


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[313] Grand Festival Montage!
FuzzyMuzzy on Sept. 23, 2010
Enter mystery shadow coordinator with a shiny Magneton! Who could this trainer be?!
Also you guys get to see the "Hall of Fame" for the Grand Festival Champions! Look theres young Heather, Wallace, and even random guy trainer! Wow!
I really like how this page came out! Sorry it took so long though, last week was the most miserable week of my life! I literally had no free time at all, but I'm back! May's appeal is up next!
On a side note, i've been following all the black and white coverage. I love how it is its own separate game with no link to past pokemon until the end. I love the story line. Some pokemon are a little dumb but some are really awesome (FINALLY A WATER STARTER THAT EVOLVES INTO SOMETHING AMAZING LIKE SWAMPERT!). I also happened to watch the 2 new anime episodes, and I really think all the changes were for the better! DID YOU GUYS SEE THAT AWESOME IRON TAIL SPECIAL EFFECT!?
CQOTD - Who do you think is the owner of the shiny Magneton?
Tell me what you think?
Thanks and Enjoy!


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Haiti Quake Caused by Previously Unknown Fault
A previously unmapped fault was responsible for the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, not the fault originally blamed for the temblor, scientists announced Tuesday.
The massive earthquake was responsible for the death of more than 200,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless.
When the quake hit, scientists thought there was little doubt about the culprit, said geophysicist Eric Calais of Purdue University, at the American Geophysical Union's Meeting of the America's conference in Brazil.
The Enriquillo fault was quickly blamed, but new data, has revealed a more complicated picture.
"The fault responsible for the earthquake was not the Enriquillo fault, but it was a new fault," Calais said. "This was such a big surprise that I thought all our calculations were wrong."
Since the earthquake, several teams of geoscientists have deployed instruments in the region to provide a detailed, up-close view of how the ground moved during the quake. Researchers analyzed the instrument readings, studied satellite images, investigated offshore evidence and made field assessments of the stricken region.
Earthquakes typically occur along faults, cracks in the rocky plates of the Earth's crust. A 25-mile- (40-kilometer-) long fault segment ruptured during the quake.
The plates that make up the Earth's crust move relative to one another, most of the time at an imperceptibly slow pace — on average plates move between 0.4 and 4 inches (1 and 10 cm) per year, which is about as fast as fingernails grow. In the case of the Haiti quake, the Caribbean and North American plates slide past one another in an east-west direction. This is known as a strike-slip boundary, or a vertical fracture where the slabs have mostly moved horizontally.
The preliminary reports suggested that the earthquake that devastated Haiti occurred at the Enriquillo fault that runs right through Haiti and is situated along the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates. This was based on preliminary observations and previous studies suggesting this fault was primed for a rupture.
The research team found, however, that some of the faults in the area where moving in unexpected directions. The Enriquillo fault is what's known as a vertical fault, but the new data suggests that the earthquake did not happen on a vertical fault, Calais said.
"Most of the slip, if not all, was on the unmapped fault, not the Enriquillo," Calais said.
The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system (EPGFZ) has not produced a major earthquake in recent decades. The EPGFZ is the likely source of historical large earthquakes in 1860, 1770 and 1751, though none of these has been confirmed in the field as associated with this fault.
Scientists aren't sure exactly how dangerous this unmapped fault is. It may be possible that the unmapped fault is part of a whole fault system that was not known before, and there is ongoing research to learn more.
"We need to know that for hazard assessment," Calais said. "It's critical."
- 7 Ways the Earth Changes in the Blink of an Eye
- Gallery: Deadly Earthquakes
- Haiti Earthquake Risk 'Not Over,' Scientist Says
This article was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to LiveScience
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By Felix Kramer* and Max Baumhefner
When it comes to consumer products, environmentalists generally don't encourage people to buy new and buy now. But that's what we're about to do because electric cars are significantly cleaner than gasoline vehicles, and driving one can save you serious cash at the pump.
Perhaps you've already thought about buying an electric car, but dismissed the idea for one reason or another. Let's look at some common misconceptions, and offer some good reasons why you might want to reconsider:
"I should drive my current car into the ground."
"Hold on," you say to yourself, "I already own a car that gets 25 miles a gallon. I want to get my money's worth from the investment." The sooner you start saving gas, the better it is for the planet and your pocketbook. There's no use in throwing good money after bad at the pump, and the sooner you sell your current car, the less money you'll lose to depreciation.
"I'd just be switching my pollution from the tailpipe to the power plant."
If you want to go green, driving on electricity is a clear winner. Using today's average American electricity mix of natural gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, wind, geothermal, and solar, an electric car emits half the amount of climate-changing carbon pollution per mile as the average new vehicle. In states with cleaner mixes, such as California, it's only a quarter as much. To find out how clean your electric car would be today, plug your zip code into the EPA's "Beyond Tailpipe Emissions Calculator." You should also know that, because old coal plants are increasingly being retired and replaced by cleaner and renewable resources, plug-in cars are the only cars that become cleaner as they age.
"What I save on gas, I'll pay in electricity."
On average US residential electricity rates, driving one of today's electric cars is the equivalent of driving a 27 mile-per-gallon car on buck-a-gallon gasoline. It's been that way for the last four decades, and is forecasted to stay that way for the next three decades. Experts basically throw up their hands when asked to predict the price of gas next year, let alone 30 years from now. One thing we do know: the price at the pump will jump up and down due to geopolitical events beyond our control. If you're tired of that rollercoaster, call your local utility to ask about electricity rates designed for plug-in cars.
"I'll hold off until prices go down and there are more places to charge."
If you're thinking you'd be better off waiting for a cheaper, better electric car, and a charging station on every block, consider the following:
- Modern electric cars start well below $30,000. Even better, there's a federal tax credit worth $7,500, and states like California have rebates of up to $2,500, which mean you can buy an electric car for under $20,000 or lease one at a very attractive price. Still thinking of waiting for a better deal? Those incentives won't last forever.
- A variety of high-quality electric cars are available today. There are over 80,000 of them on America's streets, with the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius Plug-in, and Tesla Model S leading the pack.
- Public charging stations are proliferating rapidly, but you don't need to wait for them to be as abundant as gas stations. Drivers of plug-in cars enjoy fuel that comes to them, relying on home charging to meet the vast majority of their needs.
"I often need to drive farther than electric vehicles can go without recharging."
Broadly speaking, electric cars come in two flavors: all-electric and plug-in hybrid. The second has no range limitations whatsoever; they have batteries sufficient for normal trips (between 10 and 40 miles, depending on the model), and they become efficient gasoline hybrids for longer trips. If you want one car to do it all, a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt, Toyota Prius Plug-in, Honda Accord Plug-in, Ford Fusion Energi, or Ford C-Max Energi is a great option.
If, however, your household has more than one vehicle, an all-electric is an ideal "second car" you'll end up using most of the time. All-electrics, such as the Nissan Leaf, Ford Focus EV, Mitsubishi-i, BMW Active-E, Fiat 500 EV, Coda, Chevy Spark EV, Honda Fit EV, or Tesla Model S, have ranges between 60 and 265 miles, more than enough for the daily commute. When it comes time for the long road trip, you can always take the other car.
When you get behind the wheel of an electric car, you'll experience the joy of full torque from a standstill and a super-quiet cabin. You may have a hard time going back to a machine that relies exclusively on thousands of explosions of fossil fuel every minute.
If you'd like to try a plug-in outside of a dealership, you can find an owner on DrivingElectric.org to give you a spin. You'll be surprised in ways you could never expect and you'll never get tired of driving on a clean fuel for the equivalent of buck-a-gallon gas.
*Felix Kramer is an entrepreneur who founded CalCars.org in 2002 to promote plug-in hybrids and DrivingElectric.org in 2012 to connect curious people with enthusiastic plug-in drivers.


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- Home
- Government
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- Assessor
- State Statutes
Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
"All property, except as in this constitution otherwise provided, shall be uniformly valued at its full value as defined by the legislature,..." View the entire Wyoming Constitution.
"Except as otherwise provided: (A) All taxable property shall be annually listed, valued and assessed for taxation in the county in which located and in the name of the owner of the property on January 1;..." View the entire Wyoming Statute 39-13-103. (b)(i).
"All property shall be annually valued at its fair market value. Except as otherwise provided by law for specific property, the department (Department of Revenue) shall prescribe by rule and regulation the appraisal methods and systems for determining market value using generally accepted appraisal standards." View the entire Wyoming Statute 39-13-103. (b)(ii).
The Wyoming Department of Revenue identifies the Wyoming Personal Property Valuation Manual as the instrument of 39-13-103 above. The manual contains general listings of personal property categories, trending and depreciation tables, and other related information. The Manual is available from the:
Wyoming Department of Revenue
122 W 25th Street
Herschler Building
Cheyenne, WY 82002-0110.
View the Wyoming Department of Revenue Rules and Regulations.


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An official website of the United States government
News Release 2010-78 | July 14, 2010
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Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Credit Union Administration, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Thrift Supervision, Conference of State Bank Supervisors
WASHINGTON — The federal financial regulatory agencies and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (the regulators) issued a statement today to assist financial institutions and their customers affected by the Deepwater Horizon Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The regulators' statement emphasizes that financial institutions are encouraged to work with their customers and consider measures to assist creditworthy borrowers affected by the Gulf oil spill. Such measures can help customers recover financially and be better positioned to honor their obligations. In the affected areas, these efforts can also contribute to the health of local communities and the long-term interests of institutions and their customers.
Consistent with the regulators' longstanding practice of assessing the financial condition of institutions directly affected by natural and other disasters, examiners will consider the unusual circumstances of banks and credit unions in affected areas in determining the appropriate supervisory response to safety-and-soundness issues.
The regulators are committed to working with the industry to respond to issues that arise in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill and to minimize disruption and the burden on banks and credit unions in affected areas


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I recently purchased Minecraft, but after I have been playing for about 5-10 minutes, the Java process uses all CPU power, leading to a sudden shutdown.
This is weird, because some months ago it ran without any problems.
Is there any way to fix this?
My OS is Ubuntu 11.04.


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For more than 40 years, Irvine Tennis has served as one of the largest tennis suppliers of Orange County. Our family-owned tennis shop continues to bring you the best service and latest tennis equipment. Irvine Tennis's goal has always been to give personal service and still have the lowest prices possible. Store owner, Kirk Hybskmann's, 35-year involvement in the game makes him extremely knowledgeable about rackets, strings, shoes and other tennis necessities.
Irvine tennis stocks all the major brand tennis racquets selling them at the best possible price everyday. No need to wait for a sale just call us anytime for special pricing or visit us at our tennis pro shop in Irvine, California.
Buy any racquet and we will custom string it with your choice of string. When buying a tennis racquet you can purchase any string, gauge and tension from our vast stock!


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By Antonio Gonzalez
Associated Press Sports Writer
A teary-eyed Bob Bowlsby walked out of a Stanford auditorium to a roaring ovation from coaches and staff members Thursday, leaving behind one of the nation's top athletics program for a conference in desperate need of a strong leader.
Bowlsby informed his staff and a room jam-packed with Cardinal coaches that he will become the Big 12 Conference commissioner, according to at least three people with direct knowledge of the 10-minute meeting. Bowlsby said he will remain with the Cardinal until June.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because neither Stanford nor the Big 12 has discussed the hire, which could be announced later Thursday. Bowlsby, who is expected to be formally introduced by the Big 12 on Friday, declined comment when he walked out of the meeting.
After more than six years at Stanford, Bowlsby will take over a BCS conference that seems to have found some stability after losing four schools over the past two years. The league will head into this fall with 10 members, including new additions TCU and West Virginia.
The 60-year-old Bowlsby, who had passed up several chances to leave Stanford over the years, replaces the ousted Dan Beebe, who was replaced on an interim basis by Chuck Neinas, a former Big Eight commissioner.
Bowlsby is a nationally respected college administrator who was hired away from Iowa in 2006 after 15 years spent running the Hawkeyes' athletic department.
Of all the decisions he made at Stanford, fans will forever remember his hiring of Jim Harbaugh in 2006. Harbaugh built the football program into a national power, winning the Orange Bowl over Virginia Tech in 2011 and finishing fourth in the final AP poll.
It was the program's best ranking since the unbeaten 1940 team finished No. 2.
Bowlsby also hired offensive coordinator David Shaw last year to replace Harbaugh, who departed to the San Francisco 49ers. Shaw kept the Cardinal on track, going 11-2, including an overtime loss in the Fiesta Bowl to Oklahoma State. Andrew Luck also finished Heisman Trophy runner-up both seasons.
Stanford's rigorous academic standards present unique circumstances, yet the school has won the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup 17 straight years. The award is given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the program with the most success in all sports.
Stanford is also one of the country's largest programs with 35 sports, including 19 for women. Stanford sent more athletes to the 2008 Beijing Olympics than any other college in the U.S, winning 25 Olympic medals. If Stanford were a country, it would have ranked 11th — tying with Japan — in total medals.
Bigger challenges lie ahead for Bowlsby in the Midwest.
The Big 12 was hit hard two years ago and wound up losing Nebraska to the Big Ten, Colorado to the Pac-12 and, as of July 1, Texas A&M and Missouri to the Southeastern Conference. Beebe was fired in September as Oklahoma, Texas and others were flirting with the Pac-12 and the Big 12 seemed on the brink of falling apart.
The conference is reportedly working toward a new television deal with ESPN, and Neinas was pushing members to agree to a long-term grant of media rights to the league that would make it all but impossible for schools to bolt. No deal has been struck yet, but that will likely be among the first items on the agenda for the next commissioner.
After reaching a 12-year contract worth about $3 billion last year with Fox and ESPN, the Pac-12 announced plans to launch a new conference-owned network to supplement coverage and create more exposure for Pac-12 athletes. Bowlsby had a role in the venture, which will launch this fall with the national cable network, six regional networks and a digital network.
College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo in New York and AP Sports Writers Janie McCauley in San Francisco, Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas, and Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.


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Top rated Gaming lawyers in Louisville, CO
Top rated Gaming lawyer
Padraic McCoy
Ocotillo Law & Policy Partners | Serving Louisville, CO (Boulder, CO) Super Lawyers Top rated Gaming lawyer
Log in to Super Lawyers to manage your account.
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The Super Lawyers patented selection process is peer influenced and research driven, selecting the top 5% of attorneys to the Super Lawyers lists each year. We know lawyers and make it easy to connect with them.
Super Lawyers is a research-driven, peer-influenced rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of professional achievement and peer recognition. The patented selection process combines peer nominations, independent research evaluations and peer evaluations by practice area. Each year no more than 5 percent of the attorneys in the state are selected for the Super Lawyers list, and no more than 2.5 percent for the Rising Stars list.
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Do you work for a company that provides products for lotteries?
The gaming industry is a unique and complex industry requiring knowledgeable expertise.
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Gaming attorneys handle individuals and businesses that operate or provide services and equipment for casinos, greyhound and horse race tracks, sweepstakes and lotteries.
They advise clients on a broad range of topics including regulatory compliance, licensing, and general business matters.
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Gaming attorneys listed here are recognized by their peers for their professional achievements making it easy to find a reputable lawyer that fits your needs.
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When you find attorneys who interest you, spend time and explore their profiles. There you will find the gaming attorney's contact, education, and biographical information to supplement your research. Where possible, our profiles will also include links to the gaming lawyer's personal biography, firm website, and other relevant information to consider.
Are you ready to take action? The contact form on an attorney's profile makes it easy to connect with a lawyer serving Louisville, Colorado, and seek legal advice.


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Combined revenues from the four major mobile application stores run by Apple, Nokia, Google and Research in Motion will leap 77.7% in 2011 to $3.8 billion, with the Apple App Store projected to eat up a gargantuan three-quarters share of the total market, according to new IHS Screen Digest research.
To no one's surprise, the Apple App Store continues to head off all competition. Projected figures for the Apple App Store this year call for revenue of $2.91 billion, up 63.4% from $1.78 billion in 2010. Given that Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad are the market leaders in their field, the company's App Store is expected to take in 76% of revenue this year and retain 60% market share by 2014, despite efforts by the other stores to match Apple's ability to monetize its users, IHS believes.
Apple also will lead the way with revenue gained from in-app purchases — or additional purchases made within a paid application, such as bonus game levels — which will serve as a key growth driver for revenue up to 2014.
"With consumers continuing to show robust, unflagging interest in downloading games and other applications to devices like smart phones and tablets, collective revenues from the four stores will climb sharply this year," said Jack Kent, analyst, mobile media, for IHS.
Combined revenue for the four stores in 2011 will rise from US$2.1 billion in 2010 and from $830.6 million in 2009. Application store revenues were first tracked in 2008 in a market worth just $206.01 million, with the Apple App Store the only viable presence at that time.
Total download revenue from games and other applications are projected to continue rising in the next few years, jumping to $5.6 billion in 2012, $6.9 billion in 2013 and $8.3 billion in 2014. The four app stores are the major players at present in the field, but other sites, such as Microsoft's Windows Marketplace, conceivably could gain enough size and presence in the future to shake up the market.
Making a serious bid for consumer dollars is Google's Android Market, which will see the fastest growth in 2011. Android Market revenue will soar 295.4% this year to $425.36 million, on its way to become the second-largest application store.
The ascension of Google Market to runner-up position means a fall in ranking for last year's second-place finisher, Research In Motion (RIM). This year, the BlackBerry App World will finish third with expected revenue of $279.11 million. Despite 69.2% growth in 2011 that will rival Apple's App Store revenue expansion, BlackBerry App World will have the fewest downloads, numbering about 772.2 million, compared to a staggering 10.3 billion downloads for the Apple App Store and 5.8 billion downloads for Android Market.
In last place this year will be the Nokia Ovi Store, with $201.48 million in anticipated revenue and 1.1 billion downloads from Nokia's Symbian smart phone users. Both the RIM and Nokia app stores will continue over the next few years to be relegated to the two lower positions as Apple and Google remain the dominant players, IHS Screen Digest figures show.
The total number of downloaded applications in 2011 is expected to reach 18.1 billion by year-end, compared to 9.5 billion last year, 3.1 billion in 2009 and 419.2 million in 2008. By 2014, downloaded applications will top some 33 billion.